


Yes Homo

by Mina



Series: Frat AU [1]
Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, American AU, GTOP, M/M, baeri on the side, frat AU, why did I write this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-28 19:28:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7653808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mina/pseuds/Mina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ji's a frat boy, part of that great tradition of American male heteronormativity, and Seunghyun just realized he might not be straight.</p><p>For Annie, so she'll quit bringing this up every time I want her to write me a thing and just <i>write me the damn thing</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OonaKwon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OonaKwon/gifts).



> Hey hi what's up what's happening. I have not been writing for about the last five months except then this story just sort of happened; idrk. It was written very slowly and very piecemeal and my brain could not decide what tense I wanted it to be in and all of that shows so...you've been warned. It really didn't come out the way I wanted and I still _really really_ want Annie (or also _anyone who wants to write one because this is a fun au!!_ ) to write her own version. But this is here and I wrote it and now Annie finally has to put her money where her mouth is and write some of the stuff she said she'd write me if only I wrote her the frat au, because she never specified the _quality_ of said au!!! ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!! 
> 
> Anyway I'm sorry to everyone, especially Annie, but also Annie I'm not sorry & give me fics.

Seunghyun has always been a bit behind – a late bloomer, his mother likes to say. In Korea he could never quite keep up in class, and when they moved to the States and the curriculum was much easier, he still couldn’t quite keep up because of how long it took him to get a grasp on English. (And the ADD, which he wasn’t diagnosed with until age twelve, a solid five years later than average.) He had his first kiss at seventeen, and didn’t lose his virginity until he was nineteen, which probably isn’t _that_ old in the grand scheme of things, but as a second-semester sophomore in college felt ancient. He didn’t decide what university he would go to until April 30, the night before the deadline, and didn’t declare a major until he already had eighty-seven credits. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise – though it still very much _does_ – that Seunghyun doesn’t figure out that he might like guys until he’s halfway through the fall semester of his senior year at university.

Although maybe he doesn’t like guys, plural. Maybe he just likes one guy.

They have Modern Photography together, and Seunghyun notices him during their very first class, although not for the most romantic reason. Seunghyun had chosen (mistakenly, more likely than not) to attend a large state school, so many of his classes are the overwhelmingly-large type where you only really had to show up to take exams. But the art history department is smallish, and this class only has thirty or so students, so with attendance being mandatory, they have to go through the painful first-class ritual of reading off the roll. The professor – an adjunct Seunghyun doesn’t know – predictably butchers the pronunciation: “Uh...Soong-huh-yun Chuhoy?”

 “I go by ‘Sam’,” Seunghyun says, feeling himself flush as his classmates all turn to look. He’d been nine when they moved to America, so he doesn’t have an accent, not really, but every time he has to explain his name to someone, the English words feel thick in his mouth and he notices every tiny phonetic transgression; every syllable that marks him as _foreign_. He never bothers correcting people’s pronunciation of ‘Choi’, just tells them ‘Sam, call me Sam’, and waits for them to move on.

 Which he does. The professor. He makes a little note on his list and calls the next name, Brittany Davis, who has probably never experienced the weird anxiety of having a name people can’t say. But then, after Frank Fletcher and Katie Kublanovsky, the professor calls out “Jiyong Kwon?” and Seunghyun can’t help but turn to look in exactly the way he hates when his own name is called.

 “‘Ji’ is fine,” he said – Ji Kwon, _Kwon Jiyong_ – the guy, the guy Seunghyun is maybe a little bit attracted to.

Not right away. His first thought is just, _Oh, he’s like me_. Because obviously with a name like that he’s Korean, was born in Korea, but he has an American accent, so he’d moved here when he was young.

He also notices, somewhere in the back of his mind, that Ji Kwon has a very, very nice face. That he’s slender and elegant and somehow looks better in sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt than anyone else there. But those things feel objective and unimportant and Seunghyun’s main impression that day is that he happens to have a class with another person who came from Korea as a kid, which is only barely remarkable.

Then, in the sort of thing that makes you feel like fate is a little bit racist, Ji pulls Seunghyun’s name out of the bag to determine partners for the midterm research presentation. When he reads it aloud, he pronounces ‘Choi’ correctly, which briefly confuses their professor until he sees Seunghyun nodding his head.

They don’t actually have to spend that much time together – they divide up the work that day in class and have most of their remaining discussions over email and Google Docs – but twice when the professor finishes his lecture early, he has them spend the remaining class time working on their projects, and they drag two desks together and sit side-by-side, reviewing what they will say about Alfred Stieglitz and his contributions to modern photography. That’s when Seunghyun starts to notice that he _likes_ Ji’s very, very nice face, and that Ji smells like flowers and leather and other things Seunghyun thinks smell good, and that when Ji smiles and laughs at Seunghyun’s stupid jokes, it makes his heart flip in a funny way. If you can believe it, even then Seunghyun _still_ doesn’t really understand that he is maybe sort of attracted to Ji. That doesn’t happen until the day of the midterm when they meet in the library before class to practice their presentation, which Seunghyun doesn’t think is entirely necessary but Ji had suggested it and that makes Seunghyun want to. And he finds himself constantly interjecting with jokes and what he hopes are witty comments, going _way_ over the the top, and Ji keeps _laughing_ , and finally Seunghyun thinks, _This is worse than how I was with Sarah_.

Sarah was Seunghyun’s second girlfriend, the first person he’d ever had a serious crush on, and the only person he’s ever slept with. They dated for about a year and a half but broke up the spring before. Seunghyun hadn’t been as upset about it as he sort of thought he should be. Because he _had_ really liked her; they were friends before they started dating and Seunghyun spent the better part of two semesters trying to get her to like him (plus a summer, via text). Once they were together, she claimed she would’ve said yes if he’d asked her out the day they met, which Seunghyun isn’t sure he believes

So that’s his first realization: noticing the connection his mind draws between Ji and Sarah. It throws him off balance, and he’s probably more awkward during the presentation than he might have been, and when Ji flashes him a smile when they finish and the professor says “Great job,” Seunghyun’s stomach lurches and he thinks _What the fuck_.

It’s slow after that first jolt. He keeps noticing Ji, and then noticing himself noticing him. His heart speeds up a little when Ji nods in greeting when Seunghyun gets to class, and he notices that too. At first he thinks things like, _Well, he’s a nice guy; I’d probably like to be friends with him_ , and then, _He’s good-looking; I’m allowed to notice that he’s good-looking_ , and eventually he’s saying to himself, _Okay, I like him, but so what?_

‘So what’ is the big question. Should he _do_ anything about this – well – _crush_? (It _is_ a crush, he has to admit to himself.) He doesn’t really _know_ Ji. He doesn’t even know if Ji’s _gay_.

B,ut he does have reason to suspect. All of those reasons are dumb stereotypes that Ji fulfills, but those stereotypes are based on _something_ , right? Ji is artsy and soft-spoken and _pretty/em >. And it’s on purpose. He wears jewelry and feminine clothes and, Seunghyun is almost certain, sometimes makeup. So maybe Ji is gay. Or something. Sort of gay. Seunghyun thought he was straight up until a few weeks ago, so it’s surely _possible_ that Ji’s _something.__

__

And if he is, the next question becomes: How can Seunghyun get Ji to like him?

__

He carefully avoids thinking about the question that should come after that ( _What will Seunghyun do if Ji actually_ does _like him?_ ) and turns all his focus to the problem at hand. Which is not to say he actually does anything about it. He just thinks about it. A lot. Whenever he’s on campus, he keeps his eyes peeled for Ji’s slender frame, even though on occasions when he sees him Seunghyun usually pretends he hasn’t. It’s much safer to fantasize: to dream up scenarios in which Ji would be charmed by Seunghyun’s wit and intelligence. He knows this is stupid; that if he _were_ to talk to Ji, Ji would inevitably go off-script immediately and Seunghyun would be thrown and awkward and it would be, generally, terrible. But he figures it doesn’t hurt anyone to imagine.

__

Towards the end of the semester, Seunghyun makes his way to the library to work on a paper – he always concentrates better there than at home – while running through a favorite scenario in his head: Chance upon Ji at the library, Ji asks what he’s doing there, Seunghyun says ‘Oh, you know, Wikipedia isn’t going to copy _itself_ into this paper,’ Ji laughs, then asks for help with his assignment, which happens to be something Seunghyun is an expert in, like postmodern furniture design or late-nineties single-player video games, and they spend the whole afternoon together, and then get dinner together, maybe at that place that does wraps and fajitas, and Seunghyun will tell Ji he _has_ to get the Cajun wrap and get two extra things of hot sauce on the side, _that_ is the exact correct amount, and Ji will say it’s the best wrap he’s ever had, and ask what other food secrets Seunghyun knows…

__

His reverie is interrupted by the worst possible thing: Actual Ji. That he actually chanced upon. In real life.

__

“Hey, Sam!” Ji says – loud enough to earn a sigh from the guy at the next table – and waves at Seunghyun as soon as he rounds the corner to the study area.

__

Seunghyun waves back and makes his way over, tingling with low-grade panic. “Hi,” he says when he reached Ji’s table, and somehow, the word has never sounded so stupid.

__

“Hey,” Ji says again. “That’s so funny, I looked up right when you were walking in. What are you here for?”

__

Oh god, his line. His line actually fits. “Um,” Seunghyun says, “uh, you know – I have a paper. Wikipedia isn’t gonna copy itself.” He shrugs bashfully, the tips of his ears burning. He can’t believe he said that. It sounds so unoriginal and boring out loud.

__

But then – somehow, mysteriously, miraculously – Ji laughs. Really laughs. Loudly. Enough to get a second sigh from the disgruntled guy. And Seunghyun laughs too, in pure relief.

__

“What about you?” Seunghyun asks when Ji settles down a bit.

__

“Oh, I have an assignment about Kohei Nawa. Unfortunately Wikipedia doesn’t have much to say on him. You know anything about him?”

__

_It’s actually working_ , Seunghyun thinks. His stupid fantasy scenario – this is actually _going like that_. Well, Seunghyun isn’t an _expert_ on Kohei Nawa, but he at least knows _something_. “Oh – yeah, actually. Are you taking that Discourses in Modern Design class?”

__

“Yeah! Did you take it? Was he your ‘Voices of Emerging Artists’ person?”

__

“Yeah. I mean, no – he wasn’t my person. But someone in my class did him and after their presentation I –” Seunghyun’s voice runs out in his throat, suddenly aware of how utterly uncool this makes him sound. He scratches the back of his neck. “I kind of did some research on my own,” he admits. “I’m sort of a modern art nerd.”

__

“The term is ‘ _buff_ ’,” Ji says, smiling. “That’s great, he seems really cool. Would you mind helping me out a little? I mean, I don’t want to keep you, I know you’re busy, it’s just that I’m at that scary-overwhelming stage where I’m not sure where to start and I’ve just been browsing Facebook for half-an-hour –”

__

“Sure, I can help,” Seunghyun says, dropping into the seat across from Ji.

__

“Oh my god, you’re a _lifesaver_ ,” Ji says, his eyes flared wide. “Thank you so much!”

__

It’s not that Seunghyun is suddenly not awkward – he still very much _is_ – but somehow, Ji makes him sort of forget. Every time he stutters or starts rambling or just says something stupid, Ji smiles warmly or nods or laughs. It’s nice, and what surprises Seunghyun even more was how easy it is; how comfortable. Ji seems to understand all his references, all the half-formed thoughts as they come out of his mouth. The time slips away: Seunghyun answers Ji’s questions and points him to some English-language resources about the current art scene in Japan, and then Ji asks if he wants to share the table and offers him some jellybeans as a bribe, and they work across from each other, breaking often to chat. Suddenly it’s almost seven in the evening and Seunghyun’s stomach is starting to complain. Is it actually possible they’ll go out to eat together?

__

“Wow, look at the time,” Seunghyun says, hoping that it will – as it does in his head – prompt Ji to say, 'Oh wow! Hmm, are you hungry? You wanna grab dinner?'

__

But instead the opposite happens. "Shit!" Ji exclaims and jumps out of his seat. "Sorry, I gotta run," he says as he starts packing his things into his messenger bag. "It's my best friend's boyfriend's birthday today and I promised I'd go to the dinner."

__

“Oh, okay,” Seunghyun says, clamping down on his disappointment before it can reach his face.

__

“Thank you _so_ much for your help though. Seriously, you saved me! You’re amazing!” Ji gushes. Seunghyun fidgets, realigning his laptop to be parallel to the edges of the table so he can avoid facing Ji and revealing the blush that’s undoubtedly coloring his cheeks. “I’ll see you – um – I’ll see you, uh, in class!”

__

“Yeah,” says Seunghyun, daring a glance at Ji’s face. He looks so bright and happy, a big grin plastering his cheeks. “See you in class. Have a good, um, friend’s boyfriend’s birthday dinner,” he says, chuckling awkwardly.

__

“Thanks!” Ji says. “Okay, um...bye!” He waves and rushes off, and Seunghyun counts to three before turning in his seat and watching him go. The word ‘ _KAPPA_ ’ is stamped across the ass of his sweatpants and Seunghyun finds himself having some very library-inappropriate thoughts.

__

He goes home not long after; he’s too wrapped up in reliving his conversation with Ji to get any work done. Shit, this is definitely a crush. A real, serious, not-going-away-any-time-soon crush. And even more terrifyingly, he’s starting to think it’s reciprocated.

__

Seunghyun turns the idea of that over carefully in his head, trying to remove his own anxiety and excitement and look at the situation logically. Ji touched his arm twice, and smiled a lot, and laughed a _lot_ , and called him amazing. That’s flirting, right? Seunghyun would think it was flirting if a girl did that – surely guys flirt with each other the same way girls flirt with guys? ( _Do_ they? He didn’t know. He wonders if that information is recorded somewhere, or if you're just supposed to instinctively know how to recognize male flirting if you're gay.) So assuming Ji _was_ flirting, that means either a) he’s gay and flirts with everyone because that’s just his personality or b) he’s gay and was specifically flirting with Seunghyun because he likes him. Either way, Ji’s gay. Or something. Whatever. He likes guys.

__

So Seunghyun’s path becomes a little clearer. He has to figure out two things: 1) how do men flirt with each other and 2) does Ji have a naturally flirty personality. Which feels achievable. Which is scary. Because if he finds out that yes, Ji was flirting and yes, Ji was specifically choosing to flirt with _Seunghyun_ , that means that _Ji likes Seunghyun back /em >. Which means they should maybe, possibly, potentially actually _do_ something about it._

____

Three days after their meeting in the library, Seunghyun heads to Modern Photography full of giddy energy. He’s going to try to talk to Ji today and see how that goes, see if there’s any more flirting, and then if there _is_ he’s going to talk to him again the next time he sees him and suggest some kind of hang out. Something that _might_ be a date but could just as easily be a casual get-together between two totally platonic new friends. (He hasn’t figured out what it will be yet. Maybe coffee.) And _then_ he’ll see how Ji acts during their maybe-but-not-definitely-a-date and just – (this is the scariest part) – go from there. See what Ji does. Let him make the first move. It’s kind of bad timing because it’s finals week and everyone’s going home soon, but he figures maybe he can get Ji’s phone number and they can text over winter break, and maybe they’ll have a course together next semester too and that can be a way to get a date-that-isn’t-a-date going if he can’t manage it before next week.

____

He gets to class early maybe for the first time all semester and there’s Ji waiting outside the locked classroom door, somehow looking perfect and pulled together in track pants and a sweatshirt. He’s texting on his phone, so Seunghyun could just walk by him and bail on his whole plan, but he makes himself take a deep breath and go over. “Hey.”

____

Ji looks up and his face breaks into a smile and Seunghyun files that under _Good Things_ and _Potential Flirting – Evidence_. “Hey Sam! Listen, thank you _so_ much for helping me on Friday, I feel _so_ much better about the whole thing now! I’m almost done with it and I don’t even do my presentation until Thursday!”

____

“Oh, that’s great! I’m, uh, I’m happy I helped. It was no problem.”

____

“Well, I really appreciated it. How’d you do with your paper?”

____

“Huh?” Seunghyun has unfortunately stopped processing what Ji is saying in favor of watching his mouth. His brain catches up to his ears a moment later, and before Ji can repeat himself he says, “Oh, um, my paper! It’s – um, it’s good, thanks. I got it like half done.” Most of his progress was last night after he numbed his brain watching old episodes of Pokemon and then stayed up until three feverishly writing.

____

“Nice,” Ji says, nodding. Then, “Hey, I love your coat!”

____

“My coat?” Seunghyun repeats dumbly. He looks down as though he doesn’t know what his own winter coat looks like. It’s a wool peacoat his mom treated him to last year.

____

“Yeah, the lines are really nice,” Ji says. He lifts his hands to Seunghyun’s shoulders, brushing across them and then down the lapels, his fingertips just barely gliding over the hems to emphasize the apparently nice lines. Seunghyun’s heart is in his throat. “I don’t always like the way these coats are cut for men, you know? But yours fits really well.” And then – Seunghyun can hardly believe it and it’s happening _to_ him – Ji smoothes his hands over Seunghyun’s chest, feeling it. The fit. Or Seunghyun’s chest. He’s not sure. But he’s, like, ninety-five-percent sure this is flirting.

____

“Hey, Ji!” someone calls from down the hall, and Ji’s hands slide from Seunghyun’s chest and he leans around him to see and then he’s calling out, “Yo, Murph the Smurf!” and giving a little two-finger salute.

____

Some guy who looks neither Irish nor in any way Smurf-like saunters up wearing basketball shorts and a baggy sweatshirt. He and Ji easily execute a bro shake, that half-handshake half-high-five that Seunghyun has always felt a little silly doing. “You got a final?” Murph the Smurf asks.

____

“Modern Photography in a few minutes,” Ji says, hooking his thumb over his shoulder to point to the classroom door.

____

“All right, I won’t hold you up. I was gonna come by the house for dinner tonight, you know what it’s gonna be?”

____

“I think fish,” Ji says. “Chef keeps saying it’s brain food but I think the kitchen budget’s just running out for the semester.”

____

Murph the Smurf laughs, a deep boom. “All right man, sounds good. See you later,” he says.

____

“See ya!” Ji replies as Murph the Smurf resumes his walk down the hall.

____

Seunghyun just stands there, feeling out-of-place and utterly off-kilter. Murph the Smurf is exactly the kind of dudebro that Seunghyun has been spending his college experience avoiding. And Ji’s _friends_ with him? _Good_ friends, apparently, since Murph the Smurf is going to Ji’s house for dinner tonight, and –

____

Abruptly the realization comes to Seunghyun, fully formed: “The” house. A chef making dinner. Murph the Smurf. ‘Kappa’ on Ji’s sweatpants. He’d thought it was a brand name or something, but now he knows he’s wrong.

____

Ji’s in a _frat_.

____

All of Seunghyun’s most private and tender hopes for their relationship come crashing down in an instant. Seunghyun doesn’t know a lot about guys in frats, but he does know that they are relentlessly, aggressively straight. Ji’s not a sensitive, artistically-inclined gay guy. He’s a frat bro with an odd penchant for touching. Or, oh _god_ , maybe this whole thing is a set up? Maybe all the flirtiness is part of some weird bet that involves picking up guys just to prove he can and laugh at them?

____

Seunghyun’s thoughts reach this latest, awful permutation in the half a second it takes for Ji to turn back to him, but when he does his smile at Seunghyun is so genuine that it puts him right back at ease. Bitterly disappointed, but at ease. Ji isn’t playing a cruel prank. He’s just a nice straight guy who happens to be pretty cool despite being in a fraternity.

____

“Sorry,” Ji says, unaware that he’s just crushed Seunghyun’s fantasies. “What were we talking about?”

____

“Uh –” Seunghyun stumbles, but he’s saved a moment later by the professor arriving and unlocking the door. Seunghyun offers Ji a placating smile, the kind that says _We both know this conversation is over_ , and they head in and take their seats.

____

By the time the exam finishes, Seunghyun has adjusted his mindset. Ji doesn’t like him back. He’s not an option. Which means Seunghyun effectively has no options, since there isn’t anyone else he likes. Which means he doesn’t have to figure out if he’s gay or whatever, which frankly makes his life a lot easier. And he also doesn’t have to worry about trying to get Ji to like him, because there’s no chance of their relationship going anywhere. When Ji talks to him again after class, Seunghyun feels remarkably calm.

____

_This doesn’t matter_ , he thinks to himself. This is just another guy, just another classmate. Maybe a potential friend; most likely not. He’s not someone Seunghyun needs to impress. He’s just a person, and Seunghyun thinks he’ll probably enjoy talking to Ji way more now that there’s no pressure than he ever would’ve enjoyed trying to bumble his way into his first gay relationship.

____

_This is the best possible outcome_ , Seunghyun tells himself. It definitely is. Seunghyun’s very happy with this.

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler alert: No he isn't.
> 
> Two more chapters which I'll post tomorrow because I'm gonna pass out soon. Tragically this is the best of the three chapters imo so lower your expectations please.


	2. Chapter 2

Except it turns out his feelings for Ji don’t go away that easily. The calm he felt after class fades into a morose longing as he slogs his way through the next two days of finals. Because what was the point of having all those feelings if they weren’t going to lead anywhere? If he was just going to ignore having a massive crush on a  _ man _ for the very first time in his life? Should he try to find another guy to ask out, to see if he’s really gay? He doesn’t  _ like _ anyone else, man or woman. He likes  _ Ji _ .

Seunghyun is in the library again on Wednesday afternoon, whipping together the answers to the essay questions for a take-home test and periodically looking up to stare at the blank cinderblock wall and pity himself. He’s at one of the study carrells that are scattered through the stacks, a lone desk at the end of an aisle of art books. It’s quieter here than in the main study area upstairs, which Seunghyun prefers. No distractions.

Or so he thought. He hears someone at the shelves behind him, but he keeps his eyes on his laptop. His exam is due in forty-five minutes, but he only has half an essay to go, and they submit electronically, which is pretty neat. This time three years ago, he was a panicked freshman running around shoving papers into professor’s mailboxes minutes before the deadline.

He forgets about the intruder into his little study world for a few minutes, until he realizes the footsteps are now approaching him. They’re probably just heading for the next aisle over, but Seunghyun still pauses and waits to hear them pass. It doesn’t occur to him that they’ll do anything else until – somehow surprising him even though he’s been sitting there listening – someone appears in the corner of his eye.

“Oh, thank god it’s you,” Ji says as Seunghyun startles and turns to stare at him. “I  _ thought _ it was the back of your head, and I was going to say hi, but then I thought it would be weird if it wasn’t actually you and I better check first, and it was only as I was practically on top of you that I realized it would also be really weird to walk up to a random stranger, stare at their face, and then just leave without saying anything.” Ji flashes a smile and Seunghyun melts a little despite his best efforts. “Although I guess this is kind of weird too?” He laughs.

“Nah, it’s okay,” Seunghyun says, because this is indeed a very welcome interruption to his cycle of working and being bummed out. “How’s finals week treating you?”

“Not bad. I’ve got one paper to hand in Friday that I’m almost done with, and other than that it’s just my Modern Design presentation tomorrow, which I’m pretty much done with too. Just gotta practice it a few times. I was actually just here to look at some pictures of the works I’m gonna talk about as influencing Murakami.”

“Wow,” says Seunghyun. He has never put that much effort into anything for school in his life. “You really go above and beyond, huh?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Ji says, waving him off. Seunghyun’s pretty sure he’s blushing a little. “It’s just an excuse to look at art books. I really like them. You get a much better feel for the work than you do looking at a little picture of it on a computer screen, you know?”

“Yeah. I like art books too,” Seunghyun says. It’s true.

There’s a funny moment where they both look at each other, half smiling, not talking, but just before it gets too awkward, Ji says, “So, hey, my house is having an end-of-finals party Friday, you wanna come? Should be decent enough.”

“Oh,” says Seunghyun. He was not expecting this. He wasn’t really expecting to see Ji at  _ all _ for the rest of the semester. A party? At a frat? He hasn’t been to a frat party since his freshman-year roommate dragged him to one his first month here, and he only stayed like an hour before he bailed.

But this isn’t just a frat party. It’s a frat party that  _ Ji’s inviting him to _ . His mouth is dry.

“Do you have a Saturday morning final or something? One of my buddies does, it sounds  _ so horrible _ . I don’t know why they allow that.”

“No,” Seunghyun says, still trying to get his bearings. “I don’t – I could – um.” He can’t quite bring himself to commit to it. He’s picturing himself only seeing Ji for two minutes and then spending two hours pining in the corner with a cup of shitty light beer. 

“Sorry, I can tell you’re in finals mode. Why don’t you hit me up on facebook when you decide what you wanna do?”

“I don’t have facebook,” Seunghyun responds automatically. He’d resisted making a profile until Sarah forced it on him when they started dating. He deleted it the day after they broke up, which felt pretty melodramatic, but less melodramatic than changing his relationship status to ‘single’ and unfriending Sarah.

“Oh my god, how are you even alive,” Ji says, rolling his eyes and smiling. “Gimme your phone.”

Seunghyun obliges without thinking. He wonders if Ji’s going to make fun of him for still having a flip phone, but he doesn’t. He just taps away, then makes a face. “Shit, it’s not gonna go through, there’s no reception down here,” he says, handing Seunghyun his phone back. “Well, now you have my number at least. Text me when you figure out what you wanna do.”

Jiyong had tried to send himself a message that says,  _ Ji, I should really come to your party, it’s going to be off the chain~ ^^ _ . Seunghyun’s not sure how he typed that all so fast; regardless, a big, stupid smile blooms on his face when he reads it. “All right, I’ll come,” He says. He can’t help himself.

“Yeah? Awesome! Do you know where the house is? It’s right on the Avenue. Like a block up from that side street with the place that does really good paninis.”

“Yeah, I think I know where it is,” Seunghyun says. He lives off campus, about a half mile from the end of the Avenue with the library, but he’d walked out of his way yesterday up towards the Greek houses to see which one was Kappa. It looks like a pretty nice house. Cleaner than the other frats.

“Okay, cool. Text me when you get there though because they might try to charge you cover at the door. We put the freshmen on the door because no one else’ll do it but unfortunately they’re idiots.”

“Sure, sounds good,” Seunghyun says. He has not quite caught up to the fact that he’s going to a frat party at Ji’s house on Friday; it is just now occurring to him that he managed to get Ji’s phone number somehow.

“All right, so, uh, I gotta go, and I’m sure you’ve got to get back to work, but, um, I’ll see you Friday! Just, uh – text me, okay? If you change your mind or anything – well – I’ll talk to you later!” Seunghyun says goodbye and watches Ji head off down the stacks, trying not to think about how fucked he is.

He is  _ so _ fucked.

Seunghyun has no idea how he gets through the rest of the week. He’s afraid to think about his grades coming out, but at least by Friday afternoon he’s done for the semester and doesn’t have to feel guilty for obsessing over Ji and this party instead of working. Now he just gets to feel terrified. 

He goes through three outfits and changes his hairstyle four times, which really just consists of moving the part back and forth because his hair isn’t actually long enough to do anything interesting with. Ji’s text to himself went through when Seunghyun left the library, and Ji texted back,  _ wow Sam, you’re so right. glad you listened to your own advice! ^_*  _ and Seunghyun keeps staring at it and that stupid little winking emoticon and he wonders if maybe, maybe, somehow, it’s possible that Ji is both gay and in a frat. There have to be  _ some _ gay guys in frats, right? Statistically? Maybe Ji’s the one. Maybe he’s deep in the closet. Which, technically Seunghyun is too, because he hasn’t actually told anyone about his private sexual revolution. Maybe they could be in the closet together. Making out. Seunghyun was too shy to play Seven Minutes in Heaven in middle school; it would be nice to make up for that.

Seunghyun texts Ji as he approaches the house, as instructed. Not wanting to stand around outside waiting for a response, he heads up the steps. The front door is open to the biting wind; through it Seunghyun can see a large staircase, already littered with abandoned red plastic cups, and hear the thumping bass of the dance music playing inside. Two white kids in Kappa sweatshirts are standing on the porch, looking bored and self-important; they straighten up when Seunghyun approaches. They’re both taller than him despite their barely-post-pubescent features, which is sort of annoying. 

“The cover’s twenty bucks,” the one on Seunghyun’s left says.

“It’s five less for every girl you bring,” says the other.

“Yeah, if you bring five girls it’s free.”

“Four.”

“What?”

“Four girls. If it’s five bucks less for every girl he brings.”

“Oh...oh, yeah. Four girls and it’s free. If you bring five girls you get five off your cover for the next party.”

Seunghyun checks his phone, wondering how long he should wait before texting Ji again or trying to explain to these guys that he knows him, but suddenly he’s there.

“Would you dumbasess please stop commodifying women and let my friend in?” Ji demands, grabbing Seunghyun’s wrist and tugging him over the threshold and into the house. “Sorry, they’re idiots,” he says, rolling his eyes.

“That’s okay,” says Seunghyun, a ball of warmth bursting in his chest even after Ji drops his wrist. (It wasn’t even skin-to-skin contact since Seunghyun’s wearing long sleeves. He’s really,  _ really _ fucked.) They enter the living room, thick with people, smoke, and voices, and Seunghyun feels the sudden twitchy urge to go in a dozen directions at once. He blinks hard and turns to Ji.

“Let’s get you a drink,” Ji says. He sets off through the maze of bodies and Seunghyun follows, appreciating the view afforded by Ji’s well-fitting jeans. They reach a kitchen that’s a funny mixture of commercial and consumer equipment and is, blessedly, less crowded. Ji opens the regular-size white fridge – there’s another massive stainless steel one across the room – and pulls out two bottles of only-sort-of-shitty and full-calorie beer. He expertly opens first one, then the other bottle against the formica countertop, ignores the caps that fall to the linoleum, hands Seunghyun his beer, and the hops onto the counter and takes a sip of his own. Seunghyun takes a large gulp to distract himself from the sight of Ji’s lips pursed around the mouth of the bottle.

“So,” Ji says after a moment. “We never did the whole stupid what’s-your-major-when-are-you-graduating-who-did-you-vote-for thing.”

Seunghyun takes a breath, trying to snap himself into reality. He’s really,  _ really _ here. At a frat party. With Ji. Talking. Not just talking – Ji’s trying to get to  _ know _ him. On some level, at least. “Art history, in the spring – hopefully – and I can’t vote,” says Seunghyun. He and his sister had finally been able to apply for citizenship last summer, but their applications and background checks are still processing. “I would’ve voted for Obama, obviously.”

“I can’t vote either. And same. Obviously,” says Ji with a foxy grin. (Seunghyun thinks maybe that’s unfair, though, because quite possibly  _ all _ of Ji’s grins are foxy.)

“And you’re studying...?”

“Business. Marketing, to be more specific. Graduating in a year and a half.” Seunghyun’s brain runs automatically through various stereotypes; being a business major in a frat is pretty straight, but marketing is probably the gayest business major, despite all that  _ Mad Men _ stuff. “So what are you looking to do with that art history degree?” Ji asks.

He doesn’t say it in a condescending way, but Seunghyun still laughs self-consciously. “Oh, you know, probably go live in a van down by the river?” 

Ji laughs, but then he says, “No, really, though! I mean, you can do a lot of stuff! Graphic design stuff, or, uh…”

“Well, I mean, I just really love studying it,” Seunghyun says, saving Ji from any further attempts to justify his impractical life choices. “So I applied to some programs to, um, basically study it more. And Pratt has this really cool master’s program in interior design. Like, serious interior design. Where they work with architects and stuff. But it’s really really hard to get into.” Seunghyun is abruptly sidetracked from the conversation by the realization that for all his attempts to squash Ji into a stereotype, he never considered how well he himself fit one: He is a quiet, judgmental art history student who wants to study interior design. How did he not figure out he liked guys sooner?

“That sounds really great,” Ji says, bringing Seunghyun back to the moment.

“Yeah, well,” he says. “I’ll probably just wind up back at home with my parents.” He takes a sip of his beer, hoping he sounded charmingly self-deprecating instead of bitter.

“Where’s home? That’s one we missed. Jersey?”

“Queens.”

“Flushing?”

Seunghyun rolls his eyes. It’s not hard to guess. “Yeah. You?”

“Jersey,” Ji says, a crooked smile pulling at his lips. “Basically. It can be complicated. Here for now, though.”

“You know what else we never did,” says Seunghyun, scraping at the label on his beer with his thumbnail. “The whole, I’m-Korean-you’re-Korean thing.”

“Not like it’s not obvious,” Ji says, grinning. “How old were you when you came here?”

“Nine. How about you?”

“Thirteen.”

Seunghyun’s eyebrows jump. “Really?”

“Yeah. That’s surprising?”

“Well – you don’t have an accent,” Seunghyun explains. “Like, at all. I just figured you were younger. When you came, I mean.”

“Thanks,” Ji says. “I practiced a lot.” He takes another sip of his beer and Seunghyun tries not to be too obvious about admiring his throat. Someone comes over and takes a beer from the fridge, and after he nods a greeting to Ji he walks away past Seunghyun, who reflexively steps out of the way – and slightly closer to Ji. He’s debating whether it would be weirder to move back or to stay there when Ji speaks again. “So...can I ask you something that might sound a little strange? I’m just curious.”

Seunghyun’s heart speeds up. Is he going to ask him about...that? Here? In the kitchen? “Sure,” Seunghyun says.

“I know you introduce yourself as Sam to Americans, but when you’re like, thinking about yourself, or talking to yourself or something, do you think of yourself as Sam, or as Seunghyun?”

It’s not at all what Seunghyun expected – though he’s not really sure what he  _ did _ expect – but he still notices the little flicker of comfort he feels hearing “Seunghyun” like that; hearing it pronounced the same way his mom pronounces it, the same way his sister pronounced it before they moved here and became Heidi and Sam. Hearing it come out of someone’s mouth easily instead of carefully but still mangled by foreign tongues. “I – um – I don’t know,” says Seunghyun. “I… I guess I never really thought about it.” He  _ has _ thought about it – he’s thought about it a  _ lot _ , actually – but he’s not sure how to delve into it here in this noisy frat house.

Ji looks disappointed. “Oh. I just think it’s interesting. Having two names. You know?”

Seunghyun  _ does _ know, and he  _ wants _ to talk to Ji about this, but it just doesn’t feel right here. There’s so many people around, and it smells like stale beer and overly-salted tortilla chips, and he just wants to show Ji that they have things in common but he can’t figure out how. “Mostly Seunghyun,” he blurts out. “Mostly I think of myself of Seunghyun. But it depends on the context.”

Ji’s smile is back. He lifts his bottle. “Well cheers, Seunghyun. Or –  _ Geonbae, Seunghyun-ssi! _ ”

The clink their bottles, but then Seunghyun says, “Actually you can’t call me that. You’re born in nineteen-eighty-eight, right? I’m nineteen-eighty-seven.”

“Oho! Good point,  _ Sunbae _ .”

Seunghyun laughs. “God, I can’t even remember the last time someone called me ‘ _ sunbae’ _ .”

“What about ‘ _ Hyung _ ’?”

There’s nothing unusual about the way he says it – he says it in exactly the way it’s supposed to be said – but a funny shiver runs through Seunghyun that he can’t explain. He likes it, though. “Nope,” he says, “haven’t heard that one in a long time either.”

“Hey, you should come meet my friends,” Ji says. He hops off the counter and lands close enough that Seunghyun should immediately move away, but he hesitates because he can smell Ji and Ji smells nice. “We can do the you’re-Korean-I’m-Korean thing again. Because they’re Korean. I mean they were born here, but their parents are Korean. And they’re cool. I didn’t mean that the only reason you should come meet them is that they’re Korean. That part is just incidental, really.”

Seunghyun laughs, hopelessly charmed, and Ji smiles in a way that’s mostly just mashing his lips together. Then he abruptly calls out, “Oh, hey, Murph the Smurf!”

Murph the Smurf has appeared at the entrance to the kitchen. “’Sup,” he nods at the two of them.

“You seen Abe?” Ji asks.

“Yeah, he’s in the library. Canoodling.”

“Like regular canoodling, or avoid-the-library canoodling?”

“Regular. I think it’ll be a few more drinks before they get gross. He was looking for you, anyway, so you should go by.”

“All right, thanks,” says Ji.

“No prob, Ji. Hey, nice to see you again, Sam,” Murph the Smurf says as Sam follows Ji back out of the kitchen.

“Can I ask you something?” Seunghyun asks as they slowly edge their way through the swarm of people in the living room.

“Sure,” says Ji.

“Murph the Smurf...where does that nickname come from? He doesn’t exactly look Irish. Or like a Smurf.”

“Nah, he’s Samoan, and his real name’s Joe,” Ji says. “It started out when we were freshman, he got the nickname Smurf because he couldn’t, you know, close the deal with girls. So he had blue balls, you know?” There’s a break in the crowd and Ji darts through, quick and lithe; Seunghyun manages to follow, but has to apologize to some people he bumps into as he goes. “So with nicknames like that, it’s better to just try to uh, like –  _ evolve _ the name rather than get rid of it. So we started calling him ‘Murph’, you know, short for ‘Smurf’.” They pass the front door and Seunghyun catches a bracing blast of clean, cold air. “But anyway, one day this asshole upperclassman is making fun of him, like, reminding everyone that his nickname is really ‘Smurf’ and that he sucks with women or whatever – which he doesn’t really, but, you know – and Murph told him to fuck off because he’d rather have blue balls than be a rapist. Which was really bold, you know? Because  _ so _ many guys don’t acknowledge that, that a lot of the time it’s not about, like, fucking up with a girl or something, it’s about respecting what she wants. So since then we say both parts.”

They’ve made it through a dining room where a raucous game of beer pong is happening into a sort of side-entrance hall with another set of stairs, a door to a porch, an archway leading into an even larger living room than the one at the front of the house, and just off to the side of that, a door into a small room lined with low bookshelves. Seunghyun follows Ji in.

Two guys are sitting on a couch with red cups in hand; Seunghyun guesses the girl Abe was canoodling with took a bathroom break or something. “Guys, this is Sam,” Ji says, “Sam, that’s Abe and that’s Tyler,” he says, pointing them out. Abe is the shorter of the two and has his hair dyed brown and slicked back from his face. His arm is slung over the back of the couch; Tyler, sitting beside him, has close-cropped black hair and a cocky smile. They both nod at Seunghyun in greeting.

“So you guys have a class together?” Abe asks as Ji takes a seat on the sofa to the right of the doorway.

“Yup,” Seunghyun says, still standing. “Modern Photography.”

“Oh, cool,” Abe says. Tyler nods. 

“Sit down,” Ji says, patting the cushion next to him. Seunghyun does, seized with sudden agony. Is he sitting too close? Is he sitting too far? He’s been sitting next to guys on couches his whole life and it’s never been this complicated.

Seunghyun has been internally panicking for a while before he notices the awkward silence in the room. He takes a sip of his beer. Fuck this, he’s not going to be the one to break it. He’s having a hard enough time just sitting.

“So, we’re doing a really good job at this self-segregating thing,” Tyler says, glancing out the door at the white people milling around.

They all laugh, forced but relieved. “We even separated ourselves by citizenship status,” Ji adds, indicating a line between the two couches.

“How old were you when you came over?” Abe asks.

“Nine,” Seunghyun says, glancing at Ji and exchanging a look to acknowledge the repetition of their earlier conversation.

“Nine Korean age, or nine Western age?” Tyler asks.

“Oh, Western,” Seunghyun says. “I, uh, kind of find the whole Korean-age thing confusing at this point.”

“Me too!” Tyler says, bouncing in his seat. “When I started kindergarten my parents were telling me I was seven years-old but all the kids in my class were saying they were five. I thought I was retarded or something.”

“ _ Hey! _ ” both Ji and Abe exclaim. Abe smacks the back of Tyler’s head. 

“ _ What _ ?” Tyler asks, rubbing his head where Abe hit him.

“Don’t say ‘retarded’ like that. That’s fucked up,” Abe says. He looks over at Seunghyun. “Sorry; he’s a freshman. We’re still training him to be a person.”

Tyler mutters something under his breath, but he turns his attention back to Seunghyun too. “So, hey, what’s your Korean name?”

“Seunghyun.”

“Mine too! Wow, that’s crazy,” Tyler says.

“‘Seunghyun’ is a pretty common name,” Ji says with an air of simultaneous disdain and fondness.

“I  _ know _ ,” Tyler says sulkily. “But it’s still crazy, because there’s only four of us, and two of us have the same Korean name.” He makes a face at Ji. “Wanna hear something, funny, though?” he asks Seunghyun, the perkiness back in his voice. “His Korean name is  _ Youngbae _ .” He hooks his thumb at Abe.

“That’s not funny,” Youngbae grumbles. He’s clearly holding back a smile, like he knows exactly what the joke is.

“Yes it is,” Tyler says, turned to look at Abe now. To Seunghyun’s astonishment, he reaches out and takes Abe’s face in his hands. “Because you’re my  _ old bae _ ,” he says, grinning.

Youngbae is grinning too. “I’m only, like, two years older than you!”

“You’re my bae and you’re old and it’s  _ hilarious _ ,” Tyler says. He leans in and gives Abe a peck on the lips. It’s brief, but Seunghyun sees Abe’s eyes close; senses that he doesn’t take it for granted.

“You guys are  _ gross _ ,” Ji says, laughing.

Seunghyun, meanwhile, feels like he’s on fire. His skin is crawling and his heart is hammering and he think he might throw up all over the faded, threadbare Persian rug on the floor. Abe and Tyler are a  _ couple _ ? They’re a couple, and they’re  _ both in the frat _ . Seunghyun is sure of that, from the way Ji and Murph the Smurf talked about Abe and the way they’re sitting on that couch in this frat house like it’s theirs and the Kappa sweatpants Tyle’s wearing right now. They’re gay and they’re a couple and they’re in a frat and they’re out and Ji’s laughing at them kissing like it’s  _ nothing _ , and –

“Yo, Links, you gonna take over DJing like you said or what? I don’t know if you noticed, but Cheddar just Rick Rolled us for like the third time and he’s gonna puke on the laptop soon.” Some tall white guy is standing in the door looking at Abe and Tyler, not an ounce of surprise or revulsion on his face at their position as far as Seunghyun can see.

Abe, who is apparently also called ‘Links’, heaves a sigh and stands. “All right, all right, I’m coming.”

“I’m coming too. You promised you’d let me have a turn,” Tyler says.

“You are such a  _ pain _ ,” Abe says, but he throws his arm around Tyler and pulls him in to kiss his cheek. The three make their exit and Ji and Seunghyun are left on the couch; silent except for the screaming in Seunghyun’s head.

“Sam,” Ji says after a moment, “I don’t know if I’m imagining this, but… you seem kind of uncomfortable with Abe and Tyler? And if you’ve got something against that, I don’t think we can be friends.”

Seunghyun manages to turn towards Ji, who can’t quite meet his eyes and looks profoundly disappointed in him. Seunghyun wants to laugh, but he knows it’d come out a shriek. What the fuck is he supposed to say  _ now _ ? How can he possibly explain how this whole thing just made his brain explode, and not for the reasons Ji’s assuming? 

“I think I’m gay,” Seunghyun blurts out. That, apparently, is the best he could come up with.

Ji’s mouth falls open and he stares at him for a moment, wide-eyed with shock. He looks away, closes his mouth, looks back, and sets his beer on the floor. He stands. “Come on,” he says, holding out a hand. “Let’s go talk.”


	3. Chapter 3

Ji leads him out of the library, up the stairs, and down a corridor to a bedroom. At some point in the journey the emotional whiplash fully hits Seunghyun and, humiliatingly, he starts to cry. In the course of a few weeks he went from wondering if he liked Ji, to knowing he liked Ji, to thinking Ji might like him back, to thinking Ji was straight and not caring, to thinking Ji was straight and being miserable about it, to thinking Ji might be closeted, to watching Ji nonchalantly snicker at two of his male friends casually kissing in the middle of a frat party. And Seunghyun still doesn’t even know what he _is_ . Him _or_ Ji, because maybe Ji is just a super friendly and accepting straight guy?

Ji guides Seunghyun to one of the two twin beds and sits him down; he settles himself in a rolling desk chair that he positions opposite Seunghyun and hands him a box of tissues. “It’s okay,” Ji says soothingly. “Just breathe.” He pats Seunghyun’s knee.

Seunghyun hides his face in his hands, trying to surreptitiously mop up his face. “I’m s-s-sorry –” he says, struggling through the tightness still in his throat.

“Shhhh.” Ji pats Seunghyun’s knee again and it’s starting to distract him from all the anxiety and embarrassment he’s feeling. “Don’t be sorry. Clearly Abe and Tyler affected you a lot. That’s all right. Take a deep breath, okay?”

Seunghyun does, and then he takes another one, and then another. Finally the tears have stopped. He blots the corners of his eyes a few more times and tries to look at Ji, but he gets nervous and starts laughing. “I’m really – god, I’m sorry. This is awkward. Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s okay. Really. Listen, I know we don’t know each other too well, but we can talk about this if you want. Or we can pretend it never happened. Whatever you’re comfortable with, okay?”

For one intense moment Seunghyun is overwhelmed with the urge to flee, to take Ji’s escape route and just go home and go to bed and forget all these feelings. He even jerks his leg, almost rising from the bed. But then he stops. Ji’s offering him something here, and he wants it, and more than that he wants to see what else Ji might offer. So he says, quietly, “If you – if you really don’t mind, maybe we could…um, talk?”

Ji smiles warmly, and Seunghyun feels almost at ease. “Sure. Of course.” He folds his legs beneath him to sit Indian-style on the chair, and he looks so cute that even more of Seunghyun’s anxiety is forgotten. “So. You said you _think_ you’re gay. You’re not sure?”

“Um, yeah,” says Seunghyun. “I mean, no. I’m not sure. I don’t – I don’t know what’s going on with me. I’ve had girlfriends,” he says, tacking on the last bit hastily.

“Okay,” says Ji nodding. “So what made you think, at twenty-one, having had girlfriends, that you might be gay?”

Seunghyun freezes. Is there a polite, socially graceful way to say ‘because whenever I look at you I want to hump your leg like a dog’? Figuring not, Seunghyun says instead, “I – well, I – I developed a, um, a crush. On, you know, a guy.” He bites his lip. “But I’ve never had a crush on a guy before, or done anything with a guy, or _anything_ ,” he says, all in one breath. “So, I don’t know, maybe I’m really straight and he’s just, like, the one exception?”

“Umm,” Ji says through balled-up lips, his eyes turned thoughtfully toward the ceiling. “Well, that’s not really how it works. I mean, I guess it’s not _impossible_ , but, for the most part, that’s not how it is.”

“H-how would you know? Are you...gay, or something?” Seunghyun asks, mentally cursing how obvious he’s being.

Ji smirks. “Or something,” he says. “So, these girlfriends you had. What was that like? Were you attracted to them?”

“Um,” Seunghyun stalls, reeling from this confirmation, _at last_ , that Ji is _not straight!_ “Yeah, I guess so,” he mumbles.

“That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.”

“Well, I – I mean, yeah. I was. It’s just… With my first girlfriend, it was sort of weird?”

Ji nods. “How was it weird?”

“Well, um…” Seunghyun flushes, realizing what he’s going to have to confess for this to make sense. “I used to be kind of...big. In high school. So girls weren’t really interested me. I was just kind of used to that. But then this girl Grace, out of nowhere she just asked me out, and I actually thought she was fucking with me? But I guess she wasn’t. So we dated for a while and we, you know…but I wasn’t always...that interested, I guess.”

“Has it been like that with the other girls you’ve dated?”

Seunghyun doesn’t see any need to correct Ji that it’s _girl_ , singular, not plural. “Um… Well with my ex – we broke up last spring – it was definitely…” He sighs, remembering the fumbling first time that had blossomed into a comfortable rhythm; the sweaty excitement of learning to make her come and the intensity of his own orgasms as she moaned and moved against him. “I was attracted to her. Definitely,” he says firmly.

“All right,” Ji says. “So you’re attracted to women. Some women, anyway. Which means you’re not gay. We can rule that out, at least.”

To his surprise, Seunghyun is faintly disappointed. Pushing that aside, he asks, “How did you know? That you were...something.”

“Not straight?” Ji supplies. “It wasn’t really hard for me. I sort of always knew, I think. But everyone’s different. Like Abe –” He smiles to himself. “Well, okay, so Abe was the first friend I made in America because he was like the only American who could speak Korean well enough to actually talk to me, so they paired us up at school. But I mean it wasn’t _just_ that; we like the same music and we get along really well. So I decided to tell him that I was not completely straight. And Abe’s family is pretty religious, so he was sort of upset by it, and he was asking me to explain why I thought that. And I told him how, like, in gym class, when we would be changing in the locker rooms, I wanted to look at other guys and I wanted other guys to look at me. And he got really annoyed and he was like ‘ _Everyone_ feels like that; that’s normal!’ And I just…didn’t tell him that I didn’t think everyone did. He wasn’t ready. It wasn’t until the end of our senior year of high school that he told me he’d realized he was into guys too.”

“Is Abe gay?” Seunghyun asks, nervous that this might somehow be rude. Their conversation is making him aware of how much more complex all this is than he thought.

“No, not at all,” says Ji. “He’s way more into women than guys. When we started college, I expected him to hook up with at least a few guys, to see what it was like, you know? But he didn’t. He just dated girls. And when I asked him about it, he said he knew the potential for him to be with a guy was there and that it was real; he was confident about that, but he didn’t actually _like_ any guys enough to go after them. Tyler is the first guy he’s been with.”

“Really?” That surprises Seunghyun; it means their relationship can’t be more than a few months old, since Tyler’s a freshman. They seem so comfortable together.

“Yup. It was kind of crazy, actually; like, he just _knew_ Tyler was the guy. Tyler was rushing and they’d only been around each other a few times and then at a party Abe just walked up to him and grabbed him and kissed him.”

“Wow. And Tyler was...okay with that? I mean I guess he was, but… How did he even know _Tyler_ liked guys?”

“Oh, Tyler had told us about how he’d hooked up with two dudes at camp last summer ‘just to see’, so Abe figured he wouldn’t mind. I mean, it was still a risk, obviously, but the connection was there, you know? The chemistry.”

Heat flares under Seunghyun’s skin at the word ‘chemistry’. What would Ji do if Seunghyun just grabbed him and kissed him?

“Anyway, you have to kind of figure a dude isn’t going to be _too_ offended by that when he’s so pumped to join the fag frat.”

“‘Fag frat’?” Seunghyun repeats, stunned.

“Yeah, you know. Our whole thing,” Ji says, waving his hand around in an apparent indication of the entire house.

“What whole thing?”

“Our thing of how we’re...the fag frat? Did you...not know that?”

“Um...no,” Seunghyun says. He’s pretty sure it would’ve spared him a lot of worrying if he’d known Ji was in something called ‘ _the fag frat_ ’.

“Did you transfer in or something?”

“No,” Seunghyun says, feeling stupid. “I’ve been here all four years.”

“Well there was kind of a whole...controversy...you missed that?”

“Uh, I guess so,” Seunghyun says, embarrassed. “I...live off campus.”

Ji throws his head back and laughs. He has a very pretty throat. “It must be pretty far off campus,” he teases. “Okay, well, the full story is that back when I was a freshman, Abe and I wanted to pledge Kappa because it’s a good frat for business majors, right? Ah, you probably don’t… Anyway, whatever, we wanted to join Kappa; that was our first choice. So Kappa used to extend their bids – their invitations to join – in this big dumb public thing, and like they’d tell you specifically that they were _not_ extending you a bid, which is embarrassing, obviously. So Abe and I go to this thing and Abe gets a bid and he’s all excited and then it gets to my name and I get told they’re not extending me a bid. So I was upset but Abe was _really_ upset and he interrupted the whole thing to ask why I didn’t get a bid. Because we’d both had good experiences while rushing and gotten friendly with some of the brothers and everything seemed good, so why him and not me, right? So anyway they spun all this bullshit about the ‘culture of the frat’ and the ‘comfort of the brothers’ and basically they weren’t letting me pledge because it’d gotten around that I was queer.”

Seunghyun nods, engrossed. This doesn’t make Kappa sound like ‘the fag frat’. He’s also in disbelief that Ji’s apparently been out since he arrived on campus and he only just found out _today_.

“So Abe called them out on it right there, right downstairs with all the brothers and everyone who had rushed, and told them it was bullshit and he wasn’t going to pledge because he was queer too. Which at the time people thought was like an ‘I’m Spartacus’ thing, because Abe reads as straight to most people, especially without Tyler hanging off him. And some of the brothers didn’t agree with it either so they started speaking up, and people who’d been offered bids already said they were going to turn them down, and people who hadn’t even been told yet said they wanted to withdraw, and anyway by the end of it they wound up with, like, four guys who were still willing to pledge. It was chaos. So they decided they were going to re-examine their bids – which was totally unprecedented – and basically the fraternity president was forced out and a week later I got offered a bid too. But, I mean, obviously word spread, and some of the other houses heard and started calling us ‘the fag frat’, and there was some vandalism and stuff, and it turned into, like, a whole issue on campus. There were all these letters to the editor in the student newspaper. You… you really missed that whole thing?”

“I, uh. Don’t really read the student newspaper,” Seunghyun says.

Ji shakes with laughter, bright and happy again after his dramatic story. “Gosh, you know, when you asked if I was gay, I wasn’t sure if you were messing with me, because most people know it was me who triggered the whole thing – like, not _everyone_ , but it’s sort of my claim to fame on campus.”

Jesus fucking Christ. Ji is _famous on campus for being queer_ , and Seunghyun spent _all that time_ wondering and then thinking he wasn’t! How oblivious can he be? He only has a semester left here, and he’s always shunned the more traditional aspects of campus life, but he resolves to start reading the student newspaper religiously.

“So,” Ji says after a long, quiet moment, his tone more sober, “enough about me. What are you thinking about you?”

“I – um – I still don’t really know,” Seunghyun confesses. His head is still spinning from the revelation that Ji likes guys. Ji openly, vocally, _definitively_ likes guys. So maybe all those cues Seunghyun thought he was reading – maybe that really _was_ interest? Maybe something could happen between them? He feels tense, aware of every breath, of every moment Ji’s eyes spend on him.

“Hey, can I just tell you something?” Ji says, rising from the desk chair and sinking onto the bed beside Seunghyun so fluidly Seunghyun doesn’t realize what’s happening until Ji has a delicate hand on his arm. “You don’t _need_ to know, okay? It’s _nice_ to know, it’s nice to have a label, but it’s not required. You should just trust your instincts and see where they take you. If you like someone, you should go for it, whether they’re a man or a woman. You can figure out exactly what it means later.”

Seunghyun has stopped breathing altogether. Ji’s thigh is pressed against his own. “Well,” Seunghyun says carefully, slowly raising his eyes to Ji’s, “I sort of need the person to like me back. Man or woman.”

“Who wouldn’t like you?” Ji asks, squeezing his arm. “You’re smart and interesting and funny and plus, you know, really, _really_ handsome…”

Alive with heat, hardly believing his own daring, Seunghyun says – softly – “Maybe a really cute business major in a frat…?”

And then Ji’s kissing him. And grinning. And running his hand through Seunghyun’s carefully combed hair. And it’s every bit as good as he’d hoped and even better, and Ji’s lips are as beautiful and soft and he thought and _more_ , and it feels so good and Seunghyun can’t believe he ever thought, even for a moment, that guys weren’t an option for kissing.

The break apart, both smiling too hard to kiss properly anyway, and Ji laughs loudly and says, “God, you – fuck! You really – you really, fucking – god!”

“What did _I_ do?” Seunghyun asks, delighted by Ji’s sudden speechlessness.

“You – oh my god, what did you _do_ ? You fucked with me _so bad_ ! Christ, I spent all that time flirting with you like _crazy_ , and I didn’t even know if you were straight or not, and sometimes I thought you were flirting back and sometimes not, and I honestly thought for most of this whole conversation that you’d just been nice to me because you knew I’d be a good person to have the whole am-I-gay talk with – _fuck_ , man! _I’m_ the one guy you like?”

Seunghyun nods. “Yeah. You were…flirting with me?”

“You _idiot_ ,” Ji says, and they’re kissing again.

Seunghyun’s not really sure how long that goes on for, because it all sort of melts into this one beautiful, blissful moment of warmth and happiness and the delicious way Ji’s mouth tastes. They touch each other – scalp and neck and shoulders and back and sides and thighs – and Ji’s lines are different than anyone else Seunghyun’s ever touched and he thinks it’s a little weird that he doesn’t find it weird at all.

But then it shifts, and Seunghyun doesn’t really notice at first because he’s enjoying himself so much, but then Ji’s tugging at his belt and a bolt of panic and excitement jolts Seunghyun out of his rapture and he pulls away.

“Um –” he says, a little breathless, “I’ve – I’ve never...done this before.”

“Hooked up with a guy?” says Ji, punctuating it with a kiss on Seunghyun’s neck, leaving the skin there hot and damp. “I _know_ , duh.”

“No,” says Seunghyun reluctantly. He withdraws his hands from their spots on Ji’s back and leg, leaving them an awkward, fidgety barrier in his lap. “I’ve never, like...hooked up.”

Ji jerks away from him in his surprise. “You’re a virgin?”

“What? _No_ ,” Seunghyun says, flushing dark red. “I’m _definitely_ not a virgin. I’ve just – I’ve never –” He sighs. He’s already regretting this, but he knows he would regret having a one-night stand with Ji much, much more. If he could even go through with it. “I’ve _had_ sex, just...never outside of a relationship.”

“Oh,” says Ji. His shoulders round as he slumps in on himself, eyes on the floor. “And you…you’re not ready for a relationship with a guy, I guess.”

Ji states it rather than asking, and Seunghyun doesn’t know quite how to respond. “Well, no, I mean...if the right person...if there was, like, a mutual desire to be in a relationship...but if there isn’t obviously I’m not going to force anything...I just... I’m not comfortable doing that until I, uh, you know...get to know someone a little better.”

There’s an airless moment between them and then Ji lifts his gaze to Seunghyun. “Do you...want to get to know me?”

Seunghyun nods, struck by how lovely Ji looks in this moment, how lovely in his vulnerability. “Yes,” he says quietly. “If that’s okay with you.”

Suddenly the wide-eyed innocence on Ji’s face is gone and he’s laughing uproariously. Seunghyun does not get the joke.

“You –,” Ji sputters, “you – you don’t want to hook up with me...because you want to date me?” He’s almost doubled over with laughter, one hand hanging on to Seunghyun’s shoulder to keep himself upright.

“Um,” is all Seunghyun can say. Is this really that stupid? Is Ji really this cruel?

“No, no,” Ji says, finally picking up on Seunghyun’s tension. “That’s – oh my god, like – that’s the best thing I’ve ever heard. That’s… Have we really been on campus for three years together? I can’t believe this is just happening _now_ . I…” He blots his forehead with the back of his hand and then fans himself a little while clearing his throat. “I would _love_ for us to get to know each other.”

“Really?” Seunghyun asks, a bubble of hope rising in his chest.

“ _Yes_. Are you kidding me? I just...assumed you’d want to have sex right away, because that’s usually what people want – I mean, people who kiss me, not people who are figuring out who they’re attracted to – but usually everyone just wants to hook up and no one wants to date and I think dating is _awesome_. Like, really awesome. I’d love to go on a date with you. Or many dates. If that’s what you meant. Is that what you meant about getting to know each other?”

“Yeah,” Seunghyun says. “Yeah, like, dating. Going out to eat and stuff.” Seunghyun has already fantasized about several dates a little more creative than going out to eat, including the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and Color Me Mine pottery painting, but he doesn’t want Ji to think he’s any weirder than he probably already does. And anyway the Botanical Gardens will have to wait until spring, which is a long way off which would probably freak Ji out.

“Okay, yeah. So let’s date,” Ji says, grinning. They’ve wound up side-by-side again, untouching except for shoulders and knees. Ji twists his hands together. “I hope you don’t think I’m an asshole for trying to hook up with you when you just came out to me like five minutes ago. I’ve never hooked up with someone who came out to me before, but now that I think about it, it’s a dick move. I was just...excited.”

Seunghyun’s heart gives a little flutter of happiness and a smile twists the corners of his mouth hard. “You were excited about _me_?”

Ji grins too, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling as he snorts half in laughter, half in exasperation. He looks at Seunghyun. “I know we’re not gonna hook up tonight but is kissing okay? Can I kiss you one more time?”

“I liked the kissing,” Seunghyun says.

“Good,” Ji says just before pressing his mouth to Seunghyun’s once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> K I HOPE EVERYONE'S READY TO STOP BEING NICE TO ME THANKS BYE.


End file.
